Street protests and satire lead fightback against Thai coup

SIGNS of a backlash against Thailand’s military coup grew yesterday with
scattered street protests and a wave of satire and scorn on the internet as
the nation remained under a night-time curfew.

The generals who seized power last week had ordered 35 politicians, scholars
and writers to report to the self-styled national peace and order
maintaining council by yesterday afternoon.

The council also dissolved the Senate, stripping away the last democratic
institution in the country.

Dozens of elected politicians, including Thailand’s first woman prime
minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, are being held in custody, some in military
barracks. “This is in a bid for everybody who is involved in the conflict to
calm down and have time to think,” an army spokesman said. The military said
those detained would not be held for more than a week.

Abhisit Vejaviva, the Eton and Oxford-educated leader of the Democrat party,
was freed. He opposes